OMG, time machine, Dealer Refresh blog post, circa 2011!
Is Your Dealership Chat Used or Abused? – DealerRefresh
hahaha, 13 f*ckin' years later and chat is still junk (because dealers are lead whores). Hell, back then, [USER=4695]@Ryan Everson[/USER] didn't have a licence yet 
hahahaha... But, the post has value, check out the science!
I classified repetitive questions.
- Credit Questions
- Trade-in Questions
- Search Help Needed
- Purchase Intent
- Miscellaneous
Chat users have questions the site can't answer, they want answers fast. [USER=17226]@Carsten[/USER], I used this study as a 'friction discovery tool' in my site design. Our sites haven't changed, the cars are 100x more complex and 100x more expensive. Have the shoppers questions changed? Tables below are from that post.
Here’s a breakout of the last 200+ chats on my site:
| Topic | Count | Percent |
Search Helper Needed | 91 | 44% |
Purchase Intent | 26 | 13% |
Credit | 48 | 23% |
Tradein | 19 | 9% |
Misc | 24 | 12% |
Total | 208 |
|
I went deeper, this is where it gets interesting:
Here are the subcategories I found FYI:
| Topic | Subtopic | Count | Percent |
| Credit | bad credit | 27 | 13% |
| Credit | 13 | 6% |
| Credit App Status? | 8 | 4% |
| Search | search helper (complex query) | 47 | 23% |
| search helper (by $ or payment) | 32 | 15% |
| search helper (wants details on car) | 9 | 4% |
| search helper, car has warranty? | 3 | 1% |
| Purchase | Purch Intent, has car picked out, wants Appt | 4 | 2% |
| Purch Intent (“where is this car located?”) | 3 | 1% |
| Purch Intent (“car in stock?”) | 13 | 6% |
| Purch assist (make an offer) | 6 | 3% |
| Trade-in | Tradein | 19 | 9% |
| Misc | After store visit, follow up chat (be back) | 5 | 2% |
| Translation | 3 | 1% |
| Carfax request | 2 | 1% |
| Deliver out of State? | 4 | 2% |
| Offer Military Discount? | 1 | 0% |
| Young, 1st time buyers | 5 | 2% |
| transfer car to other store | 1 | 0% |
| prep for purch questions | 3 | 1% |
| Total | 208 |
|
1) I'd love to see a breakout of today's shopper.
2) AI Chat designers, use this "Jobs to be Done" framework for training and testing.
